Consumer
by TheBlackTree
Summary: A mysterious figure haunts the streets of London at night, lingering in the deep shadows. The queen has named her worries and ordered Ciel Phantomhive to search out the culprit of the fear in her kingdom and destroy it, for once and for all. This is a tale about Ciel facing himself in a mental war.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 

"Hm? What's this?" asked Ciel as he saw the letter Sebastian had put on his desk a few minutes ago. It bore a red seal.  
"A letter from the queen." replied Sebastian, opening the curtains and arranging then in a nice way.  
"Not again!" Ciel groaned, shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight at the same time. "Last time, I almost died." The Leviathan last time wasted both time and energy and he ended up doing nothing. Or as Grell said 'I'm too young to die yeeettttt!'  
"What is it about this time? A street killer or a monster?" Ciel questioned as he removed the seal and peered inside the envelope.  
"You could say that he is a street killer." his butler replied. "A dark figure haunts the streets of London after eleven, and cuts down all he sees. The damage he did was catastrophic. Everything was bent out of shape and splinters of wood and broken bricks were strewn over the ground."  
"Any witnesses or something?" Ciel took out a single photo filmed in the darkness.  
In the picture, a tall man was standing over piles of rubble. The clock of the Big Ben showed the time: exactly twelve midnight.  
"Sebastian, this is a bit dark. I can't make out the details," said Ciel, as he handed the photo to Sebastian, standing next to him.  
"Well, firstly, this photo is no doubt very dark, and I cannot tell you much about it," Sebastian observed.  
"Continue."  
"-There's a tall man, as you said, and I should say that the man's silver hair is very long, as it is reflecting the light of the flashing camera." Sebastian stated. He squinted, trying to find any more useful details.  
"Any more?" Ciel asked impatiently. He was anxious to end this case quickly.  
"I am sorry, I cannot provide any more information," Sebastian finally said, "except the fact that I saw a corpse beneath the rubble."  
"Urgh. That was very few details." Ciel stood up from his seat. "Do you know who took this picture?"  
Sebastian scanned the pile of papers he was holding. "Peter Brown, a 53 year-old man. He lives near the Big Ben as he is the old technician there."  
"Well then, we shall go and find him." Ciel sighed, also trying to hide the fact that he was happy not to go to the Undertaker's.  
"Young master, even if you have to go and find Undertaker, he would not be here."  
"What do you mean?" Ciel questioned, raising his eyebrows.  
"The Undertaker has gone missing. He disappeared a few days ago, and no one has seen him since."  
Ciel fell silent for a while. Then he strode towards the wide open door and went out.  
"Let's go Sebastian. We must not waste any more time."  
With that he disappeared around the corner.


	2. Chapter 2

The morning sun poked its head out from the silvery-gray clouds and shone down on to the foggy streets. A brown carriage was rumbling down the pebbly road, its wheels rattling on the rough surface. The commotion of the markets and busy streets had not starting yet, and the cool breeze blew the leaves around, flying and twirling.  
In the carriage sat Ciel Phantomhive on one side, while his butler sat on the other. After Sebastian had told the other  
servants, Mey-Rin, Finnian and Baldroy, to take care of the household and cleared up their messes, they had set off early, hoping to search for more details in the remaining time.  
Ciel rested his chin on a palm, and gazed out of the window at the silent shops. He saw a dog running after a cat, yeowing as it escaped. It was the loudest noise in the now quiet London.  
"Milord, I have prepared Earl Grey tea," Sebastian's voice came from the distance, and Ciel nodded his head slightly. He was lost in his thoughts, of his company's business, of the silence in the streets, and of the black figure that stood tall, over the victims he slew.  
"Milord?" Sebastian said, interrupting his thoughts, "We are almost there." The tall tower of the Big Ben appeared in the midst of the heavy fog, its distinctive mechanical clock's second hand ticking and running.  
The carriage grinded to a halt next to a particularly old and ancient-looking house. The windows were a bit dusty and the people outside could not see what is going on in the apartment.  
Sebastian opened the door of the carriage and waited. Ciel stepped out of the carriage and glanced at a man watching a newspaper raise his eyebrows at the sight of them.  
"I suppose that he would be working at his warehouse, or workshop." Sebastian closed the door and signalled for his master to follow him.  
At the back of the house, they saw a middle-aged man sitting on a bench arranging the parts of a clock. He was just about to put a piece of gear into a hole when he saw Ciel and his black butler.  
"I suppose you are Mr. Brown the technician?" Ciel questioned bluntly.  
"Yes, young man. And what business do you have with an old guy like me?" he chuckled in his deep voice.  
"I need you to tell me about this," Ciel took out the dark photo, "You are the one to take this, are you not?"  
The man raised his eyebrows suspiciously, "Well, I am, and what do you want?" he said nervously.  
"Tell us what you saw there, Mr. Brown, we are investigating and would appreciate much if you could give us information." The Earl replied, a hint of impatience in his voice.  
"Well, since it's unusual and rare for energetic young men to come and visit me these days, I suppose telling one more person would do me no harm." he stated.  
"I was going home after work that night," he began, "when I heard a scream. I ran towards the source of the sound with a wrench in my hand, and I hid in the shadows. Then came the slicing and the noise of things crashing and breaking up. I peered around the corner, and what I saw filled me with horror."  
"What do you mean by 'telling one more person'?" Sebastian asked sharply, interrupting the man. "Someone came to find you before us?"  
"Why yes, yes. A man in a neat suit and a woman or a man in red, I don't know, maybe a woman. Oh, and they both wore glasses, one square, one red."  
Ciel tensed up at his words.  
"Anyways, I saw something really terrifying," Brown continued, "A man in black with long silver hair, holding a long blade in his hand, crushing a woman's skull with his long boots. The lights were dim then, but I saw blood on his clothes and hair. That freaked me out, I can tell you. However, me heart of justice awakened and I took out my camera and snapped. When he looked at me with his green eyes, it was like being gazed at by a ghost!" Brown shivered at the thought of the man's pale face. "And I ran, as fast as me tired legs could, away from that black guy, and I saw knives and daggers whizzing past my head and embedding them in the cracks of the brick walls," his voice started to crack, "and I heard him laughing like a maniac after me, shouting that he will find me and kill me."  
Sebastian looked at the man thoughtfully.  
"But alas, three days past and here I am, still alive and kicking," the man sighed and leaned onto a wooden box.  
"Hmm..." Ciel fell into silence, the words of the man resounding in his mind. After a while, he looked up and thanked the man for his information, and turned to leave.  
He clambered up into the carriage and heard the old technician yell to him in the distance.  
He opened the curtains and looked.  
"-Anyways, thank you for your visit, and hope that you won't run into that creepy guy!" he shouted as he waved goodbye.  
When the man's figure grew small and finally disappeared from Ciel's sight, he turned to Sebastian.  
"Sebastian, what do you think shinigamis have business or matters here?"  
"Master, we are not even sure if the duo whom Brown met are the twin shinigamis William T. Spears and Grell Sutcliff," Sebastian said, voicing his thoughts.  
"…True. I do suspect them, but there might be another person." Ciel replied, and gazed out of the window.  
"Sebastian?"  
"Yes, Milord?"  
"Next stop, Undertaker's."


	3. Chapter 3

"We are here, young master."  
The voice of Sebastian interrupting his thoughts, Ciel turned, and walked out of the opened door.  
The shop of Undertaker stood in front of them, the sign still as ancient as ever. A large 'CLOSED' sign sort of welcomed them, hanging on the door knob.  
Ciel turned the knob and went in, trying to expect what he would see.  
He gasped.  
Everything inside looked half destroyed. Books with their pages roughly torn out lay scattered on the desk, if you could recognise that it was originally one. The desk itself was half in splinters strewn over the cracked floors, the remaining half missing a leg. The layers of the shelves fell and the nails were wrenched out. A few coffins were opened, or in fact that their lids were chopped open. An empty coffin was completely destroyed.  
"Not a pretty sight, eh? Young master?" Sebastian questioned, a bit cheerfully, snapping Ciel out of his trance-like state.  
"What the heck?" Ciel tried his best not to use a swear word he had heard from an adult when he was small.  
"Looks like he's not here," Ciel stated as plainly as he could.  
He walked over to the splintered desk and picked up a leather-covered book.  
"A diary," he whispered softly. He started to flip through the pages.  
"Reading other's diaries are not considered polite and private,  
young master," Sebastian said with a smug look on his face.  
"Shut up." As Ciel flipped to the pages of the last few days, Sebastian checked the damage of the furniture.  
"Milord?" he said aloud, "I should say that this damage is caused by a particularly large blade, if not, I suspect a scythe."  
"Hm-m," Ciel responded vaguely, until he found the last written page.  
"Er, Sebastian?" he handed the book to his butler. "Undertaker's writing is TERRIBLE. His  
handwriting was fine along, but the last few pages were unreadable."  
Sebastian took the diary and studied the scribbly page.  
He looked up for a moment and said,  
"I shall read it out aloud." he waited for a while after Ciel gave him the permission, and then he spoke.  
"'It's consuming me. Hehehe. Who would think that I, a shinigami, would be so easily tempted?'" here he paused, a warning look in his eyes, "'Yet this being is beyond my control. It has crept into the depths of my mind. I am losing. It had drove me mad.'" here Sebastian squinted, as the lines of the words became more and more unclear, "'But I know a weakness of it. Hehehe. It is not so hard, and not so easy. Ju-'"  
Sebastian stopped abruptly, and gazed at Ciel.  
"Hey, what happen? Continue!" Ciel snapped.  
"There's no more, young master, someone turned over the ink pot and it spilled. The words  
were covered," he showed Ciel the blacked page.  
"Oh jeez!" Ciel almost shouted, "Damn you Undertaker, going away like that and spoiling our very last evidence, or at least the most useful one!"  
Sebastian smiled at his master's fury.  
"Though, don't you think that the disappearance of Undertaker itself is the evidence?" he questioned, the knowing smile still on his face.  
"What do you mean?" Ciel raised his eyebrows.  
"The day when Undertaker disappeared, if I am not mistaken, is the exact date when the first victim was found." Sebastian reached in his jacket and took out a pile of papers. He flipped the shuffling pages and stopped.  
"The first day was the 4th July." He closed the booklet, "Today is the 10th. Undertaker went missing a week ago, from looking at the thickening dust layer."  
"I see..." Ciel said softly. "So Undertaker could be that mystery killer. It all matches with the previous evidence: the appearance of the man in the photo, his behavior (maniacal) and the few sentences in the diary."  
Sebastian's expression turned grave.  
"It would seem that the Undertaker is the culprit."  
Ciel turned and walked to the door, which was covered with new cobwebs.  
"Sebastian?" he finally said, "What will you do if Undertaker is the murderer?" He stepped towards his butler.  
Sebastian had an amused look on his face.  
"Why, of course I will fight him." he smiled.  
"If he dies, we would lose a very useful adviser." Ciel stared at him.  
Sebastian sighed.  
"I would not kill him, unless he proved to be very much a threat to you."  
"Kill him not, Sebastian. Bring him back and stay with me, be at my side, even if you have to fight.."  
"All the time?"  
"All the time, Sebastian."  
Ciel nodded and stepped out of the wooden door.


	4. Chapter 4

At night.

Far from the Phantomhive mansion, past the cold and dark streets...

A tall silhouette towered over a shivering figure on the ground. Under the single dim light, the same old workshop Ciel previously visited could faintly be seen.

"Sooooo you think you can escape from me?" The tall man slowly closes up into the victim. His legs were like jelly, and all he could think about was what he had told the young man he met just this morning.

_But alas, three days past and here I am, still alive and kicking._

"N...no..."

Under the moonlight, the man's silver hair shone in the dark as he raised his blade. He smiled wildly, his eyes a mysterious green.

Splash.

The ground was stained red.

The murderer wiped the crimson liquid off his face. He turned to leave, but was stopped when a chainsaw landed right on top of him, cutting his right arm.

"Nice job you've done, eh?"

In front of him were the very same green eyes and a blazing red coat.


End file.
